Feeding the flames
by Dagron
Summary: I've told you time and time again, Kudo. Whatever you try, you won't be able to investigate those doors until it is your turn." "You can't fault me for trying, Miyano."


**Feeding the flames.**

The room was fairly grey, with patches of dull brown here and faded blues there. The only real source of colour came from the fire in the middle of it, flickering reds and gold across the room, only to suddenly dim, causing black shadows to rush in towards it. Tending to the fire were two figures: one was tall and slim, his shoulders square and the odd spike of rebel hair on his head; the other was daintier, a woman with a bob of tea coloured curls. She was shorter than the male figure, but not by much. The two sat apart, hardly looking at each other, merely exchanging brief words when a log was needed or the fire was to be fanned. There wasn't much to say, really.

Having fanned the fire till it was bright and high, the young man sighed and leaned back, stretching his arms high above his head. It was obvious that he had had enough of just sitting there, and was itching to find some form of exercise that would allow him to give his legs a decent work out. He glanced at the only exits from the room. Two doors, facing each other: one was light, with a gleaming handle, the other was dark, with a soot black knob. How he had longed to go and open those doors, to peak in at what it was that was hidden behind them. He had tried to before, with little success, but he wasn't one to give up easily. A smirk danced across his features as his companion watched him rise, disapproval in her gaze.

He didn't go straight for the door. He knew by now that that approach would always be unsuccessful. Instead he loitered around the barer walls of the room, feigning to look for something of interest in the rubble on the floor. The rubble came in all shapes and sizes, and caused the room to come across as some form of excavated cave. He prodded some promising bits with the tip of his shoe, until settling on one that appeared to be fairly light. With the ease of long practice, he kicked it up into the air and started juggling with it. First with one foot, then with two. By the time the piece was being juggled by his knees, the girl had rolled her eyes and turned away.

As he focussed on his juggling, his feet seemed to take him on an erratic path around the room. A bit hither, a tad dither, until his back was nearly up against the dark door. He did not seem to be aware of this, however, until he kicked the rubble up towards the ceiling and turned swiftly, his hand reaching for the handle. It had been his plan all along.

Yet once again his plans were thwarted. His hand only met with a stone wall, the door having dissolved faster than he could reach it. He let out a swear that he quickly cut off, but the dry chuckle of his companion told him just how transparent his tactic had been.

"I've told you time and time again. Whatever you try, you won't be able to investigate those doors until it is your turn."

"You can't fault me for trying, Miyano."

At this the girl merely shook her head, her lips forming an amused smile, but her eyes betraying her inner resignation to their fate.

The young man sighed, cracked his knuckles and returned to his place by her side. He sat down gingerly on the dusty green jacket he had laid down there. He could still make out the blood stains it had acquired when he had first arrived. Out of reflex, his hand flew to his hairline, where his fingers massaged the skin, trying to find the wound. He recalled feeling something in that area, knowing that was where the blood had come from. He never did find any form of gash, but, every now and then he would feel a stab of pain in that general spot... In a similar fashion, he would often observe Miyano gazing into nothingness as she massaged her right wrist, searching for something that was not there. At times she would favour her left hand when it came to putting a log into the hearth. But for now all they could do was watch the flames and wait for their next duty.

The flames were the only thing of any true interest in the room. They danced and jumped, ran in circles and seemed to pause. They were alive, whereas the rest of the room was very much comatose... And when you stared long enough, well, interesting things started to appear, such as childhood friends, recent foes, and maybe, just maybe, characters the two could think of as their alter egos.

The man watched as a young boy with glasses walked about in the flames, juggling what appeared to be a ball, in a pretty similar fashion to how the man had just juggled with a piece of rubble. The figure was soon surrounded by those of other children, apparently applauding him on his talent. The young man couldn't help but feel a small pang of envy. He had been alone for what had seemed ages when he had first arrived in this room. He missed the kind of company this young boy in the fire, his alter-ego, seemed to have acquired.

"Say, Kudo?" The voice of his present company pulled him out of his thoughts.

"Hm?"

Miyano's company was better than none, he had to admit, but it was a peculiar kind of company. One that consisted mainly of silences, interspersed with small commentary and the odd discussion that would more often than not end in a disagreement.

"How come you're so good at juggling with a ball?"

"Oh, I've been playing football since I was in grade school. It's just with practice." He shrugged. No chance of a real conversation on that topic.

"No. I meant what caused you to practice it that much?"

"Eh... I just enjoyed it I guess. It's like most things people do a lot of." He gazed down at the fire's embers. Was it time to feed them another log yet?

"So you enjoyed it from the get go?"

This question made him pause as he reached out towards the wood pile. He fingered his chin as he tried to recall his very first experience with the round ball.

"No, actually." The young man leaned back, as he finally decided it was maybe a bit early to put more fuel on the fire. "As a young boy, I tended to spend most of my time indoors, devouring books from my father's library. I probably considered football as boring back then, but my dad figured out a way to get me interested and outdoors more. He turned it into a challenge."

"Ah. A challenge." The young woman curled her arms around her knees as she shifted position, the better to look at Kudo reminisce.

"Yes," he continued, picking up a cold piece of charcoal with which to demonstrate. "He dragged me out one sunny afternoon, took a piece of coloured chalk and drew a small circle on the wall. Told me I couldn't kick a ball onto that target ten times in a row, would never be able to if I spent my life indoors. He left a ball there for me and said I wasn't to come indoors until mom called us for dinner. By the end of the season I could hit the target up to twenty times in succession. He couldn't believe it."

"I see. So he used your stubbornness to your advantage." Miyano chuckled.

"Hey!"

"It must be nice."

Kudo paused to observe her. She was fondling her right wrist again, her gaze lost in the flames.  
"Yeah," he said. "I guess it is."

They both knew how they had each reached this room. Both knew vaguely where it was they were, and why they were there. In both cases, their stubborn traits had been their downfall.

A few moments of silence passed, within which Miyano finally added a log to the fire. Kudo glanced at her face as the hungry flames blazed and flushed it scarlet. The hiss and sputter of the wood as it found itself slowly devoured reminded him of his attitude to her when she had first arrived.

All alone for so long, he had convinced himself that he had gone mad. This couldn't be happening to him. He had to be in some dream, some sort of world created from within his mind, to entertain him as his body lay at worst dead, at best in a coma... The images in the fire had been there to mock him. He, a child, incapable of anything, least of all telling Ran the truth about his feelings, despite always being by her side. But it was true, wasn't it? When he had realized that he loved her, he had been unable to change his attitude towards her, to actually tell her. The best compromise he had come to had been that "date", the promised outing to Tropical Land, and even then it had taken a case to force him to swallow his manly pride.

The only thing to distract Kudo from this pitiful image of himself as a child, a poor liar, apart from the rubble and the mysterious doors, had been the _happenings_. Moments when the flames would literally dance and sway and roar high, forcing him to stand back and shield his eyes. When the fire was done, and back to its usual self, it would leave behind a shade, a human that seemed to lack something. Invariably the shade would notice him, sometimes even speak at him with variable intelligibility. A few had literally launched themselves at him... But they would tire of him quickly, and seek the way out. None of them had trouble reaching the doors. That of itself, somehow, told him what they were lacking. Life. Their eyes were always as dull and grey as the walls surrounding him.

Miyano had appeared in pretty much the same fashion. A column of fire, a sputtering cough as the ashes floated down and a figure. This time one crouched, holding its mouth, its body bent over itself.

She didn't get any sympathy from Kudo.

In his defence, the previous two or three _happenings_ had produced fairly unpleasant characters. One, a man in military uniform, had brutally tackled him to the floor at the mere sight of him. Another had feigned a fainting fit only to punch his lights out, or attempt to, when he had come closer to inquire. It was only later that he recalled which door they had gone through: the dark one. But Kudo had also tried something else, something that had put him in a fouler mood than when he had first noticed how unattainable the doors were to him. He had tried to let the fire die.

It had been against his better instincts to attempt it, but still, he did. He had been pondering about trying it ever since the incident, the dream within the dream that had got him wondering if there was truly a way out of his prison. For the best part of half an hour, he had been out. And he had been out without any memory of the dull room. It was as if he had been the child in the fire all along, and it was only then he had been allowed to be fully himself once more. How he had hated the child in the flame then, when the fire had started pulling at his heart again, until his vision had faded along with the pain, leaving him back in the dreaded room, wearing the clothes he had worn to the attraction park that day that now felt so long gone.

He had watched in growing misery as one after another the embers had cooled and died, turning to mere ash. But still, he remained determined, even after he noticed the encroaching cold, even when the picture in the fire taunted him with a love rival, even when the tiniest flame had managed to produce a _happening_ despite its size. He wondered what would happen if - no, when- it went out... Would he remain in the dark? Would he wake up? Would he die? Would he return to the dream within the dream or would he be back to his own life, where he'd left off, in Tropical Land?

He became increasingly aware of the doors, usually so easy to ignore, presently so ominous. The cold had him shivering uncontrollably, his teeth chattering audibly. He realized he was afraid. He was terrified. He did not want to die. _He did not want to be dead._  
And so, without any thinking on his part, his hand had reached out and fed the remaining flame a twig. And then a branch, followed by a stick, and then a log. Progressively he had made his way through the self-refilling pile of tinder until the fire was burning normally again.

Miyano had had to arrive just after this scare, just when Kudo had been furious against himself for being so frightened, for having even considered such a stupid plan. A _happening_ had seemed the best outlet for his frustration...

"Don't even think about it." His voice had greeted her, venom underlining the sharp tones. He still remembered the previous one's punch. It had left no bruise nor damage, but it had still hurt.

The woman had jumped in her skin, but quickly she mastered the tremor that had run through her arm as she glanced up towards him, just shy of meeting his gaze.

"Who are you?" She asked. Her own voice had sounded remarkably calm, with her intonations clear, and the slightest bit of ice and disdain in response to his own.

Kudo had laughed. It had been a while since he had heard a _happening_ speak intelligible Japanese. The flames were truly mocking him, weren't they?

"I'm Kudo Shinichi, detective," he replied, crouching down to her level, slightly condescending. "And you, I presume, are solely here for the simple purpose of messing with my mind, aren't you? A quick blow to my ego, and then you leave me to wallow in loneliness, just like all the others before you... But I know what you are. You're just figments of my imagination. I won't let you get the better of me, you hear!"

All he got for a response was a stunned whisper.

"You can't be..."

"What can't I be? Serious? I'm perfectly serious."

"Kudo Shinichi is dead." At last the girl made contact with his eyes. He noticed that hers were a pale blue tinged with green.

"I'm. Not. Dead." And most definitely not as long as he could still deny it.

The girl stood up, her left hand flexing around her right wrist, as she stared at him.

"Kudo Shinichi _is_ dead. He was given my experimental poison by Gin. I investigated his house myself. As far as the organisation is concerned, you are deceased."

A shadow of doubt began to flutter in his heart, as he noticed just how not-dead her eyes appeared. And usually by now, most of the shades from previous _happenings_ had at least noticed the doors.

"Experimental poison...?"  
He hated it even more so for ringing so many bells.

"Where are we?" She finally asked, turning slowly to take in the room.

Curiosity etched into his features, Kudo replied.  
"You tell me."

It had taken time for the two to adapt to each other's presence, to strike a balance between respect and befuddlement. It was the most bewildering situation to them both. She couldn't reach the doors either, and after much conflict and many silences, Miyano had resigned herself to telling Kudo of her knowledge of his other self, of his survival in the form of a child. After a couple of _happenings_, and the sudden apparition of an auburn haired child in the flame, by the bespectacled boy's side, she had to admit that her attempt to kill herself had backfired, and that this room wasn't some anti-chamber of hell or wherever doomed souls went once their body had died. Though it did seem to be the doorway to some kingdom of the dead. The young scientist had listened, befuddled, as the teenage detective had told her of a _happening_ that she had reminded him of. It had been a young woman, her hair long and black, and her suit stained crimson. She too had jumped at the mention of his name, had looked around at the room in bewilderment. But soon she had chosen a door, reached out for its handle, and left, leaving only a warning and a bottled message in the young man's ears.

'Beware of the crows,' and 'If you see my sister, tell her I'm sorry I left so soon, that I didn't mean to... Say goodbye.'

Miyano had cried afterwards, quietly, when she thought he wouldn't notice. He had been feigning sleep, an attitude they both adopted when they felt the other wanted some privacy. They had no need for sleep or anything here. No urge. The only thing that ever needed fuel was the fire. The woodpile would restock itself just as magically as the surplus ash in the hearth would vanish.

"Do you think we'll ever leave this place?" he asked quietly, resurfacing from his reminiscences.

"Why do you ask me that?" His companion asked back, slightly annoyed as she turned her face away from the figures in the flame. The child had come across yet another dead body. "You're the stubborn one," she added, pointing at the fire. "The one who believes in justice, who never loses hope nor resigns himself to his fate..."

He didn't reply.

"Besides," Miyano continued, her expression softening as she looked into his eyes. "You have left this place before. So have I. You've even left it twice if what you tell me is true."

"Short escapades. Temporary. Never long enough to..."

"To live? Maybe not. But it tells us that a return to our lives is possible, even if difficult to achieve. And from what I've seen and what you've told me, we would still return here in the end. Only then we'd be passing through..." She picked up the fan and gave the fire a huff. The blaze raised its arms in surrender as air rushed across its embers.

"I know that..." He whispered. He knew it well, and recalled Miyano's return from her own escapade... Bruised and hurt, her wounds slowly vanishing as her soul (what else could he call it?) realized that her recent brush with death had been all but permanent. But still...

"It's just... I hate sitting here, doing nothing." He poked at the familiar figure in the flame with a stick. "He's always moving, acting, working towards a solution. Besides, this sort of thing is your domain, is it not? 'We can be both of God and the Devil, since we are trying to raise the dead against the stream of time'?"

"I hate when you do that." She said, referring to his use of information his other self had discovered in the flames to corner her. "Listen, I've told you before. I may have been to Bikuni island to investigate mermaid's flesh, I may have gone to many other locations to learn of tales of extended life spans and death defying legends, I may even have created a poison that gave us our bodies from ten years prior, but that does not make me an expert. I have no idea what this place is, whether it has intentions, or why we are here apart to keep some mystical fire burning."

"Besides..." She began, after standing up in a fit of restlessness. "You-"

She was interrupted by the roar of the fire as its flames shot up unaided, announcing a new intrusion. The two winced as they covered their eyes, and a figure fell out of the blaze. A few minutes later, Miyano had managed to help Kudo avoid an altercation, and the figure had vanished through the doors like many before him.

"I didn't know you spoke Italian... That was Italian, right?" Kudo's knowledge of the language was pretty much limited to 'Oro' and some soccer related phrases. He was rubbing his arm where the shade had hit him.

"I don't. But I did pick up enough Italian when I visited Italy, to tell him where he was and what to do."

"You went to Italy?"

"They say they have healing sources there..." She told him.

But she didn't tell him what she had been going to say when the _happening_ had occurred. That she too was fed up of waiting, of doing nothing but sit and watch. And unlike Kudo, she had an idea of what could become of them if they waited too long.

When Kudo had left this room a second time, leaving her alone in it for the first time ever, she had made an encounter... No, not with a _happening_, but with a darker, more sinister shadow.

The person had waltzed into the room, not via the fire, but via the door. The dark door. It had been a woman, wearing an elegant black dress that shimmered as she marched towards the fire. She remembered staring at the apparition, wondering why Kudo had never mentioned such a thing occurring, and then the lady had paused.

"My, it has been a long time," she appeared to be talking to the flame. But soon enough she raised her eyes to stare into her own. "And you must be Helena's child. I've heard of you."

The woman's eyes were bright green, sharp and disquieting, but also very much alive.

"And you are?"

She had found it disquieting that this stranger knew of her mother's name, that she somehow managed to send tremors of terror down her spine, even though she knew that nothing could truly happen to her here. Miyano had felt compelled to stand up and step back..

"No need to be so troubled..." The woman answered, side-stepping the question. "There's hope for you two yet. Yukiko's boy seems quite resourceful."

She crouched down next to the tinder.

"Though I would admit," she continued, while giving the fire an deft fanning with the one hand, "that it isn't going to be easy."

She stared into Miyano's eyes. Miyano glared back. The women chuckled.

"You might want to be wary, young one..." She stood again and tossed the fan back to its place beside the hearth and the wood pile. "... That your soul doesn't become too apart from the one in the flame. Then you might see things, many things, and then who knows where you'll end up?"

"Is that what happened to you?" Miyano finally asked, trying to sound flippant, but unable to hide the curiosity in her voice.

"Well, I'm not a demon, not yet, and I have yet to meet a true angel, so I'll let you figure out the maths on that one. Besides, a secret makes a woman..." The woman gave her a smile full of irony, before turning towards the door, this time the white one. "I'll tell your mother you said hi."

And with a swoosh of her black skirt, the woman had vanished from the room.

Kudo would never know.

**FIN.**

Notes: Inspired by the Aberdeen Ballet representation of Romeo and Juliet (oddly enough). Many thanks to Claude, Teainapot and Rae for poking at stuff/betaing this. A version of this posted at my Live Journal account also includes a deleted scene, if there are any curious...  
Thanks for reading!


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